Jackpot?

RIVERTON, Wyo. – Earlier this month, the sheriff’s office was called to the Wind River Casino in Riverton on a report that someone was doing drugs in the women’s bathroom.

They arrived to find A 50-year-old woman from Thermopolis there, smoking meth. The woman, Debra Bauer, was brought up on charges for the offense, and her companion, 50-year-old Carl Eckhardt, also of Thermopolis, was charged with possession of both meth and marijuana.

They were both cited, which means they were not taken to jail, but promised to appear in court. Their smoking spree at the casino could cost them $750 or 30 days in jail. That’s the maximum penalty for the misdemeanor offense.

It was the sharp eye of a female security guard who caught the two. She told her boss she’d seen the woman go into a bathroom stall and within minutes smoke was pluming above it. The sheriff’s department was called in, even though the casino is on the Wind River Indian Reservation, because the woman caught smoking was not American Indian.